


when the stars are the only things we share

by hydrospanners



Series: renegade [28]
Category: Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic
Genre: Angst, Drabble, Family Feels, Gen, Mid-KotFE
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-21
Updated: 2018-04-21
Packaged: 2019-04-23 06:57:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14327055
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hydrospanners/pseuds/hydrospanners
Summary: On the anniversary of her aunt’s death, the newly minted Commander of the Alliance connects with an old friend in the hopes of finding her absent brother.





	when the stars are the only things we share

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on Tumblr.

It’s funny how memories get bound up in smells. Jedi spend a lot of time worrying about their eyes deceiving them, but they don’t say much about noses. That’s the way of the Jedi, though, isn’t it? Smart people with no common sense.

But that was before. Hard to say what the way of the Jedi is now. Hard to say how many of them are even left.

Rea turns the mug in her hands, savoring the warmth and the bitter, earthy scent. She hates caf, has always hated caf, but holding it like this, breathing it–-It’s like breathing a memory.

She can feel the worn fabric of the galley booth beneath her thighs and the subtle vibrations of the hyperdrive as it hurls them through space. She hears her brother and Kira’s drowsy argument-–they’re always arguing–-as they trudge up the stairs. Rusk stands by the caf maker, tearing the lid from his fourth cup of energy pudding as he waits for the caf to brew.

Rea blinks, and she’s below deck. The light is the same but she knows it’s the middle of the night. It’s too quiet to be anything else. Vents hiss overhead and there’s the hum of the engines, otherwise there’s no sound but Doc, quietly slurping his caf. He’s always slurping his caf. He isn’t Doc if he isn’t winking and slurping his caf. Sometimes she wants to slap his stupid mug to the ground and stomp on its shattered remains. Now she thinks she could kiss it.

But it isn’t real. Her ship is dry-docked on Odessen and its crew is scattered to the wind. Another family lost. Her brother lost. Again.

“Didn’t think you liked caf,” Liss breaks the silence after it’s gone on too long. She sips slowly from her own mug.

“I don’t.”

Liss nods. “Didn’t think you were sentimental, either.”

“I’m not.”

She’s lonely is what she is. Lonely and tired and afraid. It’s not a great combination.

“You know what today is?”

“Would I be here if I didn’t?”

“Hard to believe it’s been twenty years,” Liss says.

Rea catches herself before she objects, before she says it’s only been fifteen. For a second, her heart stops. Her breath catches and blood drains from her face. “Twenty years,” she parrots.  _I’m thirty-five_.

Liss gives her a minute to adjust. She watches Rea over the rim of her mug as she sips, slowly. Taking her measure. “I get what you’re trying to do,” she says once the color starts to return to Rea’s cheeks, “but it’d be better if you’d just ask what you came here to ask.”

Rea puts her mug back on the table, caf still steaming and untouched. This whole exercise was a waste of time and resources and she knew it before she left.

Still. It can’t hurt to try.

(Much.)

“Have you heard from him?”

Liss shakes her head. “I’d be with him if I had.”

That’s a truth Rea feels in her heart. Rhese was always Liss’ favorite. He was everyone’s favorite, but he and Liss had something special. She’d wanted to adopt him once, was even willing to take Rea as a necessary part of the bargain, until Ranna had shut her down. Rea never found out why. She never wanted to.

“I haven’t seen him in five years, Turhaya. Not since he came to tell me you died.” Liss lowers her cup and turns her eyes to its depths. “He was so convinced it was true. You know how he gets.” She does. There is no righteous fervor like Rhese Velaran’s righteous fervor. “He said he couldn’t sense you anymore. Neither could that girl, your apprentice. They said you’d never vanished like that before, and they were sure it meant you were dead.”

Rea hears the accusation Liss is trying not to make. She can feel it too, the little spike of anger. Her once-almost-aunt is more controlled than most Zeltrons, but sometimes it still bleeds over. “I was frozen in carbonite, Liss.” Her voice is distant and unwavering as she explains. Someone else’s voice, from far away, laying out the facts like the facts don’t mean her whole life is in ruins and she’s adrift out here, scared and alone. “I never meant to leave. I was captured. I killed Valkorion-–”  _again_ , she thinks but does not say “–-and his son had me frozen in carbonite. That’s where I’ve been.”

“There were rumors,” is all Liss says.

“You don’t believe me?”

“No, no. I believe you. It’s the kind of thing that would only happen to you, Turhaya.” She smiles, a little sad. “I used to think you were like Ranna, you know. When you were small.”

Everyone thought that. Everyone but Qarric.

“I was wrong. You have her cunning. You’re headstrong and you’re fearless, but you aren’t like her.”

“It was always Rhese who took after Ranna,” Rea agrees. “He’s the impulsive one. He hides it well, but it’s there. And he has her bleeding heart.”

“He sent me messages for a while. After you died.”

“Can I have them?”

Liss sighs, but nods. “They won’t lead you anywhere, though. I looked. I looked for years. Your brother-–”

Silence stretches between them, deep and black. There is understanding in it.

“I know,” Rea says. “He’s all I have too.”


End file.
